Major Tech Investment and Strong Growth Position This Hip Brand Top Among Pet Care Franchises Dogtopia shows it has a winning formula for dogs, pet parents, and franchisees.

For the sixth year in a row, the largest pet care franchise in North America comes in as the #1 in that industry on Entrepreneur's annual Franchise 500 list. That's right. Say hello, again, to Dogtopia, the fast-growing pet services brand that offers daycare, overnight stays, and spa services.

What makes Dogtopia so unique is its modern, safe spin on daycare and wellness for dogs. Unlike other competitors, Dogtopia offers open-play off-leash daycare in state-of-the-art clean facilities built with dogs' needs in mind. While there are plenty of less expensive franchise offerings in the space, Dogtopia stands out as the premiere daycare provider.

Dogtopia has a winning formula for dogs and a successful strategy for franchisees, too. That's why Dogtopia sits atop the pet care category and comes in at #74 on our overall list. This is also their sixth consecutive year deservedly among the top 100.

In large part, Dogtopia ranks so well because of its steady, impressive unit growth. With 290 total locations around North America, the company scores in top 15% in size and growth on this year's Franchise 500. The brand also delivered strong financial growth, with 12% systemwide revenue growth and more than 5% same-store sales growth over 2023.

It also scores in the top 5% for franchisee support. And it makes sense. Dogtopia has mastered the franchisee experience with 160 hours of classroom and on-the-job training, as well as support from 60 team members that includes pre-opening real estate, design and construction management, and strong on-going operations assistance. Franchisees can also leverage a national call center, a supply chain that saved franchisees more than $3 million last year, and 650 hours of proprietary training modules on their learning management system.

Embracing tech to power franchisee success

The Dogtopia team was busy this year rolling out company-wide upgrades to help franchisees do their best work. For starters, the company "invested over $7 million in our new technology stack to support our franchisees and improve the customer experience," explains Neil Gill, Dogtopia's President and CEO.

Dogtopia's new daycare management system called The HUB, powered by Salesforce, provides its network with a customized platform to better manage daycare, boarding and spa appointments, transactions and billing, and customer relationship management. "We're excited to continue to evolve this and roll out new features specific to Dogtopia to enhance both the franchisee and consumer experience," Gill says.

The company also recently rolled out phase one of its new wellness ecosystem with DASH—a proprietary activity monitor for dogs. "Unlike other tech collars or devices on the market, DASH has been rigorously tested to withstand all the activity that takes place within Dogtopia's active playrooms," Gill says. "Parents can view how far their dog traveled in minutes and miles, learn how many calories they burned to aid and see how much time their dog spent resting…both in and out of the playroom." A new wellness app upgrade is also launching to support the wellness initiatives, he says.

Gill says that 2025 is one that current and aspiring franchisees should be excited for. "We're constantly working on improving the model—whether it's single unit economics or our tech stack, there's plenty of ROI improvements coming in 2025 and beyond," he says.

Click here to learn more about Dogtopia and about how to become a franchisee.